ahmed iftikhar - voices of the working children and their parents will anyone listen
DESCRIPTION
The voices of nearly three hundred and sixty thousand children (boys and girls) and over one hundred and sixty four thousand parents (mothers and fathers) from both urban and rural areas of 25 developing countries have been pooled together in this book to analyse the children's and their parents' own experiences, perceptions, priorities and aspirations on the multiple dimensions of the phenomenon of child labour. Data was collected through national child labour surveys carried out during 1999 and 2011.The book synthesises the children's and their parents' own perceptions of why children work, the consequences on family welfare if children stopped work, their future aspirations and reasons for children not attending school drawing on this unique data set.Striking similarities have been noted between the children's and parents' mindsets across countries with diverse social, economic, cultural and political contexts.TRANSCRIPT
1
About the author
Iftikhar Ahmed is a Development Economist having worked at the
International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva during three decades (1974-
2004) in the Employment Sector for many years having led the research
programme on technology, environment and employment with a focus on
gender issues. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International
Labour Review and Director of the ILO’s Bureau of Publications. His other
ILO assignments included that of the Action Research Coordinator at the
ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)
and Director of the ILO Office in Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to joining the ILO,
he was a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Iowa State University of Science and
Technology, United States, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and Associate Professor of
Economics, Dhaka University, Bangladesh. He is the author of Technological
Change and Agrarian Structure: A study of Bangladesh (Geneva, ILO, 1981)
co-editor (with Bill H. Kinsey) of Farm Equipment Innovations in Eastern and
Central Southern Africa (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1984), editor of
Technology and Rural Women: Conceptual and Empirical Issues (London,
George Allen & Unwin, 1985), co-editor (with Vernon W. Ruttan) of
Generation and Diffusion of Agricultural Innovations: The Role of
Institutional Factors (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1988), editor of
Biotechnology: A Hope or a Threat? (London, Macmillan, 1992), and co-
editor (with Jacobus A. Doeleman) of Beyond Rio: The environmental Crisis
and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Third World (London, Macmillan, 1995
and New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996).
3
Dedication
Dedicated to the real child labour specialists, the 168 million working
children of the world and to the author’s three more-fortunate school-
going grandchildren, Amina, Zahra and Zain.
5
I f t i k h a r A h m e d
V O I C E S O F T H E W O R K I N G
C H I L D R E N
A N D T H E I R P A R E N T S :
W I L L A N Y O N E L I S T E N ?
With contributions by:
Muhammad Quamrul Hasan
and
Mohammad Mahbub Pervez
6
Copyright © Iftikhar Ahmed (2015)
The right of Iftikhar Ahmed to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for
damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.
ISBN 978 1 78455 756 0 (Paperback)
ISBN 978 1 78455 758 4 (Hardback)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2015)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB
Printed and bound in Great Britain
7
Voices of the working children and their parents:
Will any one listen?
Abstract
The voices of nearly three hundred and sixty thousand children (boys and
girls, 5-14 years of age) and over one hundred and sixty four thousand parents
(mothers and fathers) from both urban and rural areas of 25 countries spread
across three developing continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America
(including two countries from Eastern Europe) have been pooled together in
this book to analyse the children’s and their parents’ own experiences,
perceptions, priorities and aspirations on the multiple dimensions of the
phenomenon of child labour. Data was collected through national child labour
surveys carried out during 1999 and 2011.
Striking similarities have been noted between the children’s and parents’
mindsets across countries with diverse social, economic, cultural and political
contexts. According to both the children and the parents, children work for a
combination of reasons such as, in order to (a) supplement household income,
(b) assist household enterprise, (c) earn money to start children’s own
business or meet personal expenses and (d) gain work experience or acquire
skills or learn work ethics. Remarkably, no gender differences are noted in
their responses, although a rural/urban divide has been observed with respect
to the first reason.
Similarly, both parents and children are equally afraid that (a) household
living standard will decline and (b) household enterprise cannot operate fully
if the children stopped working, such a fear being more significant for rural
residents. In addition, parents from several countries fear children will not
acquire any work ethic or practical skills if they stopped working. However,
not all parents think alike; paradoxically, a good proportion of parents from a
set of countries from all three developing continents at the same time believe
that children stopping work does not affect the household welfare in any way.
A very high proportion of parents (more of the mothers from Latin America
as compared to those of Asia and Africa) and children (a larger proportion of
girls) aspire for the children to go to school full-time in the future. A
relatively higher proportion of children (more of boys and rural children)
aspire to work full-time now and in the future compared to the parents (more
of the fathers) who aspire for their children to do so. There are also some
parents and children from several countries whose aspirations for the children
include children’s combining part-time work with part-time education and
completion of education/training/ acquisition of skills before starting work.
8
Reasons advanced by parents and children for the latter not attending school
include cost of education (higher proportion of mothers and rural parents),
problems of learning achievement (lower proportion of girls but higher
proportion of rural children) and children being engaged in economic
activities (a higher proportion of girls engaged in household chores). A
negligible proportion of both parents and children stated that family does not
allow children to go to school. As regards education provision and child
labour links, contrary to most existing empirical evidence, a negligible
proportion of parents and children gave the quality of education or the
distance of schools (a more acute problem in rural areas) as a reason for
children not attending school or for their engaging in work.
As for the children engaged in wage work, vast majority of the children (more
of the girls and rural children) universally hand over their entire earnings to
their parents.
9
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 15 Notes on the author and contributors 16 Author’s preface 18 1 Introduction 20 Explosive recent growth in child labour literature 20 Focus of ongoing programmes 20 Children’s and their parents’ own perceptions: A major gap 21 Benefits of special child labour surveys 21 Demonising parents 22 Aims, objectives and scope of the study 23 Issues addressed 24 Methodology, sources of data and country coverage 24 Source of data 25 The child labour survey methodology and geographical coverage 25 Selection and number of respondents 26 Discrepancies in the number of respondents 27 Statistical analysis 28 Significance of the study in the current global socio-economic context 30 Explaining the puzzle: Declining child labour amidst growing unemployment 30 Vulnerable employment awaits working children 31 Design of the book 32 2 Why do our children work? 38 Opening remarks 38 Parents’ perceptions 38
Parents’ views across countries converge 38 Parents’ perceptions unaltered by gender 39 Do urban and rural environments influence parents’ views? 40
Children’s perceptions 40 Solidarity in children’s views across countries 40 Boys and girls think alike 41 A rural/urban divide 42
Do parents’ mindsets conflict with children’s perceptions? 43 Comparison of parents and children’s perception across countries covered by same
survey 43 Gender-differences prevail 44 Rural/urban divide exists 44
Main Conclusion 44 3 If children stop working 57 Introductory remarks 57 Parents’ perceptions 57
Parents’ views across countries 57 Gender differences 58 Rural/urban divide exists 58
Children’s perceptions: Bolivia and Cambodia 59 Parents’ and children’s perceptions identical in Cambodia 60 Summing up 61
10
4 If only we had a choice 68 Caring parents: Honduras and the Philippines 68
Children’s aspirations now 68 Children’s unfulfilled dreams across countries 69 Girls’ higher preference for schooling 69 Rural/urban divide 70
Caring parents in Honduras and the Philippines 70 Parents’ aspirations for the children in the future 71
Caring parents’ aspirations for the future 71 The inter-continental gender divide: Latino mothers are more caring 71 Rural/urban divide in the parents’ aspirations for the future 72
Children’s wish list: A mixed blessing 72 Girls wiser 73 Rural/urban differences 73
Parents do care but children are ready to sacrifice 74 Concluding comments 75
Parents’ and children’s aspirations now 75 Parents’ and Children’s aspirations in the future 75
5 We want to go to school 89 Introduction 89 Parents’ arguments 89
Affordability and learning ability 89 Mothers disagree 90 Rural/urban divide 90
Children’s predicaments 91 Views across countries 91 Tradition-bound but smarter girls 92 Rural/urban divide: Mixed scenario 92
Parents’ and children’s views compared: Bolivia and the Philippines 93 Conclusions: Some myths about education – child labour links 94
Overall Conclusions 94 Does market work interfere with children’s school attendance? 95 Does lower educational achievement and attainment boost child labour? 96 Does combining school with work adversely affect the academic achievement of
children? 96 Is there a link between education provision and child labour? 96
6 Who owns the fruits of our labour? 106 Powerless children 106 Boys and girls equally vulnerable 106 Rural children less fortunate 106 Summing up 107 No significant gender differences were noted in the 9 countries 107 7 Conclusions and overview of findings 112 Looking through the prism 112 Overview of empirical findings 112
Priorities of the children and parents: Who benefits? 113 To supplement household income or to meet expenses 113 To assist household enterprise/family business 113 To earn money to start children’s own business 114 To gain work experience/learning skills or work ethics 114 Educational quality and distance from school 114
11
Stop child labour: A slogan or a commitment 115 Fall in living standards 115 A blow to household enterprise 115 Loss of work ethic 116 The good news: Household not affected 116
Unfulfilled dreams: Parents’ and children’s aspirations 116 Go to school full-time 116 Work full-time 117 Combining education with work 117 Complete Education before working 118
The truth about school attendance 118 Financial problems 118 Academic performance 119 Children engaged in economic activities 119 Is family an obstacle? 119 Discouraged by distance from school/quality of school 120
Who controls the purse? 120 Concluding comments and policy response 120
Household as the unit of analysis 120 Household economic priorities perpetuating child labour 121 A silver lining: The thirst for learning 121 Bridging the rural/urban divide 121 Social norms: A glass ceiling for the girls 121 Parents unjustly demonised 122 Risks of empowering children 122 Confidence or powerlessness 123 Knowledge is power 123 Cooperation or conflict 124
In a nut shell: the policy package 124 Relevance of existing policies and programmes: Carrot and Stick 126
Advocacy Campaigns 126 Income replacement programmes 127 Flexible school programmes 127 Reintegration projects 127 Conditional transfers 128 National legal prohibition of child labour 128 Trade sanctions and labour standards 129 Concluding remarks 130
Bibliography 141
12
List of Tables and illustration
Tables
Table
1.1
National Census and Statistical Bureaux conducting the child
labour surveys by Country, title, type and year of survey
35
Table
1.2
Number of parents and children (5-14 years of age) included
in the data set by Country, gender and rural/urban residence
37
Table
2.1
Parents’ views on why children work by country (percentage) 45
Table
2.2
Parents’ views on why children work by country and gender
(percentage)
46
Table
2.3
Parents’ views on why children work by country and region
(percentage)
48
Table
2.4
Children’s views on why they work by country (percentage) 49
Table
2.5
Children’s views on why they work by country and gender
(percentage)
50
Table
2.6
Children’s views on why they work by country and region
(percentage)
52
Table
2.7
Parents’ and children’s views on why they work by country
(percentage)
53
Table
2.8
Parents’ and children’s views on why they work by country
and gender (percentage)
54
Table
2.9
Parents’ and children’s views on why they work by country
and region (percentage)
56
Table
3.1
Parents’ views of the consequences on the household of their
children stopping work by country (percentage)
63
Table
3.2
Parents’ views on the consequences on the household of their
children stopping work by country and gender (percentage)
64
Table
3.3
Parents’ views on the consequences on the household of their
children stopping work by country and region (percentage)
65
Table
3.4
Children’s views of the consequences on the household of
their stopping work by gender and region: Cambodia 2001
(percentage)
66
Table
3.5
Parents’ and children’s views of the consequences on the
household of their stopping work by gender and region:
Cambodia 2001 (percentage)
67
Table
4.1
Parents’ aspirations for their children now by country, gender
and region (percentage)
77
Table
4.2
Children’s aspirations now by country (percentage) 78
Table
4.3
Children’s aspirations now by country and gender
(percentage)
79
Table Children’s aspirations now by country and region 80
13
4.4 (percentage)
Table
4.5
Aspirations now of parents and children by country, gender
and region (percentage)
81
Table
4.6
Parents’ aspirations for their children in the future by country
(percentage)
82
Table
4.7
Parents’ aspirations for their children in the future by country
and gender (percentage)
83
Table
4.8
Parents’ aspirations for their children in the future by country
and region (percentage)
84
Table
4.9
Children’s aspirations for their future by country (percentage) 85
Table
4.10
Children’s aspirations for their future by country and gender
(percentage)
86
Table
4.11
Children’s aspirations for their future by country and region
(percentage)
87
Table
4.12
Parents’ and children’s aspirations for the future by country
(percentage)
88
Table
5.1
Reasons given by parents for their children not attending
school by country (percentage)
98
Table
5.2
Reasons given by parents for their children not attending
school by country and gender (percentage)
99
Table 5.3 Reasons given by parents for their children not attending
school by country and region (percentage)
100
Table 5.4 Reasons given by children for their not attending school
by country (percentage)
101
Table 5.5 Reasons given by children for their not attending school
by country and gender (percentage)
102
Table 5.6 Reasons given by children for their not attending school
by country and region (percentage)
104
Table 5.7 Reasons given by parents and children for their not
attending school by Country, gender and region:
Philippines 2001 (percentage)
105
Table 6.1 Children’s report on recipients of their earnings by
country (percentage)
108
Table 6.2 Children’s report on recipients of their earnings by
country and gender (percentage)
109
Table 6.3 Children’s report on recipients of their earnings by
country and region (percentage)
111
Table.7.1 A matrix of parent’s and children’s mindsets on issues
relating to child labour across countries by gender and
rural/urban residence
131
Table A.1 Questions posed to the parents and children (5-17 years of
age) by country and dimension of child labour
138
Illustration
14
Figure 1.1 Number of actions reported under Convention Nos. 138
and 182 by type, 1999-2005, 2006-2009 and 2010-2013
36
15
Acknowledgements
The study took into account the valuable comments provided on the initial
draft by two anonymous referees from ILO’s International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and the helpful suggestions for
improving the text subsequently received from Marlous de Milliano of the
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, Italy which focuses on
children’s rights.
Without the enthusiasm and insistence of my friend Muhammad Muqtada and
without the support of my tennis partner and eminent economist, Guy
Standing and my mentor Ajit Bhalla, this book would never have been
published.
The author is grateful to Md. Kawsarul Alam Sarker who undertook the
tedious work of placing the entire manuscript on the word processor.
16
Notes on the author and contributors
Iftikhar Ahmed is a Development Economist having worked at the
International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva during three decades (1974-
2004) in the Employment Sector for many years having led the research
programme on technology, environment and employment with a focus on
gender issues. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International
Labour Review and Director of the ILO’s Bureau of Publications. His other
ILO assignments included that of the Action Research Coordinator at the
ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)
and Director of the ILO Office in Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to joining the ILO,
he was a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Iowa State University of Science and
Technology, United States, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and Associate Professor of
Economics, Dhaka University, Bangladesh. He is the author of Technological
Change and Agrarian Structure: A study of Bangladesh (Geneva, ILO, 1981)
co-editor (with Bill H. Kinsey) of Farm Equipment Innovations in Eastern and
Central Southern Africa (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1984), editor of
Technology and Rural Women: Conceptual and Empirical Issues (London,
George Allen & Unwin, 1985), co-editor (with Vernon W. Ruttan) of
Generation and Diffusion of Agricultural Innovations: The Role of
Institutional Factors (Aldershot, United Kingdom, Gower, 1988), editor of
Biotechnology: A Hope or a Threat? (London, Macmillan, 1992), and co-
editor (with Jacobus A. Doeleman) of Beyond Rio: The environmental Crisis
and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Third World (London, Macmillan, 1995
and New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996).
Muhammad Quamrul Hasan worked as a Consultant Statistician with
UNESCO, UNDP and UNICEF Asia and Pacific Regional Office after having
served as a statistician/lecturer at the United Nations Statistical Institute for
Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) in Japan where he was involved in national
statistical capacity building. Before joining SIAP in 2004, he worked as the
Systems and Database Administrator at the Statistical Information and
Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC) of the International
Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) at the International
Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva for four years where he formulated
strategy and established the child labour statistical data archive. He was the
main author of the child labour survey data processing manual and
contributed to the manual on survey data collection published by the ILO. He
was a member of the ILO’s team on global estimation of child labour in 2002.
Prior to joining the ILO, he worked as senior systems analyst at the UK Data
Archive at the University of Essex and as an Associate Professor at the
University of Rajshahi (Bangladesh).
17
Mohammad Mahbub Pervez is a statistician/data management expert,
currently employed with the Bangladesh National Food Policy Capacity
Strengthening Programme being implemented by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Prior to that he developed the
Management Information System under Advancing Sustainable
Environmental Health (ASEH) Project of the international NGO, Water Aid
Bangladesh. He served as the Monitoring and Evaluation In-charge/Database
Specialist under the Food Security Enhancement Initiative of World Vision
Bangladesh during 2000-2006. He also made contributions to data
management for International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Bangladesh,
Practical Action (former ITDG) Bangladesh and Action Aid Bangladesh (for
one of its livelihood surveys).
18
Author’s preface
The author of this study was inspired by the loud and clear voices of the poor,
the non-unionized industrial workers and the insecure inhabitants of this
planet to similarly listen to the voices of the powerless working children and
their desperate parents from Third World countries.
Essentially, the study assembles and analyses the views, experiences priorities
and aspirations of 359,921 boys and girls and their parents (both mothers and
fathers) numbering 164,271 from 25 countries spread over all three
developing continents and Eastern Europe across diverse, social, cultural,
economic and political contexts through special child labour surveys
conducted by the national census and statistical bureaux of each country with
the technical support of the ILO.
The credibility and authenticity of information secured by direct interviews of
nearly 360,000 boys and girls and over 164,000 parents stands out in stark
contrast with the anecdotal accounts presented by children at international
conferences hand- picked by the organizers.
Therefore, the author would strongly urge policy makers and practitioners to
read this book to reflect on the results and respond to the voices raised by the
helpless working children and their caring parents world-wide.
Equally importantly, the author recommends the translation of the book into
the local vernaculars of the 25 countries covered by this study providing a
mechanism for the children and the parents to hear one another’s voice and
discover their common, mutually-supportive mindsets and the absence of an
adversarial relationship. This sharing of knowledge within one’s own
household will certainly empower them to collectively fight their own battle
against child labour.
The author recognises that the data generated by this study will not in itself
end child labour, but he firmly believes that, at the very least, this book can
make progress towards the elimination of child labour possible by providing
empirical evidence to drive action, identify gaps in policies, influence
decision-makers, target investment and interventions to reach out to the most
vulnerable children and their families.
Narayan, Deepa; Petesch, Patti (eds.): Voices of the poor: From many lands (New York, Oxford University Press, and Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2002); Anker, Richard "People's
Security Survey: An outline of methodology and concepts" in International Labour Review; (Geneva, ILO) Vol. 141, No. 4, 2002; and Fredon, Richard B.; Rogers, Joel: What workers
want (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1999).
19
The book represents an effort to fully utilise the data set generated by the
child labour surveys.
This book could also be seen as a part of a recent trend of data-focused social
and economic analysis of major global issues such as inequality of wealth in
the world’s leading economies2.1
Finally, the age of internet communication has facilitated the incorporation of
inputs and the synthesis of contributions of the author and the two statistical
analysts spread over three corners of the world (Switzerland, Bangladesh and
the UK) into this multi-authored book.
2 See for instance, Piketty, Thomas: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard University Press, 2014). No other book on economics in recent
history received such a glowing initial reception as the Piketty book did world-wide.
20
1 Introduction
Explosive recent growth in child labour literature
An amazing recent flood of literature on child labour, based on empirical
work, can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, child labour is
increasingly viewed as a human rights issue. Secondly, globalization
(primarily international trade) increased awareness of the existence of child
labour that hit the conscience of consumers in rich countries of cheap products
imported from the Third World perpetuating child labour. Thirdly, a growing
concern about the impact on long-term economic growth of child labour by
affecting human capital development. Fourthly, greater recent availability of
national representative household survey data has opened up opportunities for
empirically investigating the complex multiple dimensions of child labour.
Therefore, it is little surprising that nearly 150 journal articles on child labour
were published within a span of the first 5 years of this century alone, when a
meagre 6 articles on this subject were published in the decade of the 1980’s
with substantial jump in the contribution to 65 articles in the subsequent
decade of the 1990s (Edmonds, 2008).
Focus of ongoing programmes
On the other hand, at the practical level, it is by now widely recognized that
child labour reduction policies and action programmes drawing on insights
obtained from the above research are not implemented in a vacuum. Based on
the results of the academic work, they are formulated by bureaucrats, planners
and development practitioners and implemented by government agencies and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in different cultural, political and
socio--economic settings without taking into account the location-specific
social norms of the family or the perceptions of working children and the
mindsets of their parents where such information is available at the country-
level, for instance, those generated by the ILO’s National Child Labour
Surveys.
If our main goal is to assist working children and their parents to succeed in
their own efforts to eliminate child labour, then what can be more important
than listening to the voices of the children and their parents themselves.
Therefore, this cross-country study is based on the data generated by the ILO
through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour